It's been eighteen months since lawyer Oliver Barrett IV's wife, Jenny Barrett née Cavilleri, his college sweetheart and the love of his life, died at age twenty-five from leukemia. To cope, Oliver has immersed himself in work, especially in a pet project to assist low income tenants in a lower east side Manhattan housing project take control of the building's renovation by investing their "sweat" as equity, but has otherwise retreated from the world. Those that love him, including Jenny's father, Phil Cavilleri, want him to move on emotionally from Jenny's death to be able to open himself up to love again. A secret set-up by some friends shows Oliver that he at least has to address his emotional distress by regular therapy sessions. In doing so, he is able to approach a woman to who he is attracted, divorced Marcie Nash, an employee at upscale Bonwit Teller. Both Oliver and Marcie are cautious in opening up fully about their lives, Oliver about Jenny, and Marcie about the fact that she works professionally under her maiden name "Bonwit", her current role in the company not as an "employee" per se, but being a Board member. These issues may place hurdles in their relationship in the memory of Jenny coloring how he deals with Marcie as a girlfriend, and their similar socio-economic background - as opposed to Jenny who came from a working class background - placing certain expectations, at least on her part, in the relationship. In this relationship, Oliver may also get a better understanding of what has always been his stiff and strained relationship with his father, Oliver Barrett III, on the eve of his retirement from the family's textile business.